Category: life

Knowledge is Power

I think that I get a lot of ideas to blog about when I am in India. It’s been frantic one week I have been here, now that I have internet connection I can get back to blogging. When I am in US, a lot of stuff that comes out of me is very personal which I usually journal. In India though it’s different. My mind is filled with ideas for blogging here. So, here is something I have come across recently.

Who ever said that “Knowledge is Power” wasn’t joking. It’s true and I think there is a flippant side to that quote too. In India, you will come across a lot of elder people who use their ‘Knowledge’ to yield ‘Power’. India is a smorgasbord of forgotten traditions and new consuming habits. In this variety of feelings – the person who ‘claims’ to know the answer is the king. You see, you don’t necessarily have to be right because you could use your ‘elderness’ to make it right.

Recently my sister had a baby. My nephew shares his birthday with me now. And I was excited to see him. But it was not going to be that easy. There was this Aunt. Let’s call her – Aunt Kia(Know It All). Aunt Kia used her knowledge and put forward a rule. She said, I can’t see my nephew without hearing him cry. And after I see him, I need to give him some money as a gift. So, when I entered my the room, I literally closed my eyes and they made the baby cry – which I think is CRAZY. Once I heard him cry, I saw him and gave him a gift of Rs.500.

Now, I don’t mind following this weird tradition because all the elders were happy I did that (they expected me not to respect any traditions after living in US and marrying a Hindu). But what boggles my mind is that there is no logical explanation to this. And ‘Aunt Kia’ wields her power only because she can blurt out these kinds of things in everything we do. I have seen her in action in the past too – she has a age old tradition for everything, from taking a shower to raising a baby. But, no one questions her. Because then it would be chaos as you would be pitting your heads against the tradition. In all this craziness, ‘Aunt Kia’ happily paddles her way by throwing around commands. I am pretty sure every Indian family has one such ‘Aunt Kia’.

I think this is one aspect of Indian family where this ‘hidden knowledge’ of tradition gives immense power to the elders. I am not sure when does tradition stops and manipulation starts. It’s kinda easy to trespass that line.

On the other hand, I see another kind of power being yielded by the young people. A lot of young people know a lot about technology in this country. SMS, Email etc are so easy for these young people, but very difficult to comprehend for the elders in the household. So, in this case the youth uses it’s knowledge to wield power. But, at least it’s not based on some superstitions.

The real clash of ages happen when the traditions’ superstitions clash with new ages’ arrogance. I am not sure who will win eventually but I do know that it’s going to be a long battle. In the mean time keep gathering that knowledge.

Travel, Travel & Travel

I have been on the move from the past 4 weeks. I didn’t realize how packed my days, weeks are going to be when we planned it. It all started long time back. Shyam’s wedding plans have been going on from last year. Even though we were never actively part of his wedding plans, we were prepping ourselves in various ways. We went to Chicago first. It was nice to be part of the family preparations. It was nice to eat home made amazing Indian food. And there was this extra tradition of offering the food to God before we eat it – may be it does enhance the taste of it. I loved it.

After one week of talking about the next week and preparation we drove to Cleveland. We were greeted with much more love and affection. Sangita’s family friends came to our rescue. We stayed in their homes and became part of their family. Their kids gave up their rooms for us. To think of these kids who are about 15, 12, 7 yrs old and so thoughtful just blows my mind away.

That week was the most fun one. We had Shyam’s court wedding, traditional temple wedding, Sangeeth, and a grand reception. I could write pages about each of those days, but I am just gonna keep it short.

From Cleveland we drove up to NJ & NY. Met our good old friends and had such a fun time. Finally we got back Oakland last week and we drove to Santa Barbara for Sangita’s school stuff. We spent last week by wonderful beach.

Now we are back in Oakland and I am leaving for India day after tomorrow! Can’t believe everything is happening so fast. I am pretty sure I would be travelling a lot in India. I am a bit tired of all the moving too. Actually I feel jet lagged even before I have started. Hehe.

There, that’s my travel update.

Journey of an Indian Consultant

On Saturday I was visiting one of my long lost friend who was in Sacramento for 1 week on some project work. He is trying to change jobs and as a part of the process, he was there to check out the new job for 1 week. In that process, I happen to meet another Indian guy who is a consultant too and also just moved to Sacramento for work.

Talking to them reminded me how I was like them only a couple of years back. A consultant moving from place to place. We also chatted about a lot of issues the usual Indian guys face when they actually come to US for work purpose. As I was speaking to them – I was fascinated by the journey any Indian consultant makes through his career.

So here is my (partial) list of things that a typical or standard Indian consultant goes through. To all those Indian consultants – “keep it going yaar”! For the fictional aspects as well as for understanding purpose who are non-Indian I am going to use a character name called “Babu” (Thanks Sienfeld)

Birth of a Consultant

Babu is born in some remote village of Southern India. His parents are farmers and they are very hard working people. His parents have learned from what they saw around them in contemporary India that Education is the best thing they can give to their child.

Babu ends up working hard in his school and college. Babu’s parents can’t afford to pay for all his education so they borrow money and send him to College. Babu secures an admission in one of the prestigious schools. But the problem is it’s not in his village/town. It’s in the capital city. Babu is very excited and so his parents. Let’s say he goes to ‘Hyderabad’ city for his education.

Babu goes to City

Babu makes new friends and starts living in a place which could be described as 2 room apartment with no furniture. He lives with 4 of his friends as they have figured out that more the number of students less the rent they have to pay. They do have a TV which they watch on a regular basis. Their eyes glued to the boob-tube and their dreams hitched on high hopes in Western countries.

Babu gets introduced to binge drinking. The perennial skill of Indian common man. Checkout Indian mythology to see how much liquor influences us Indians. Then follows terrible throw ups and not to mention the favorite acts of breaking the beer bottle.

Babu also gets introduced to movies. A lot of them. As movies consume his time, he wishes that he too has some super powers (Google Rajnikant on Youtube) like those stars. He wishes that he too want to get some “pretty”, “fair skinned” girl to fall in love with. This is the same time when Babu explores his amorous side. Since it’s been taboo with his parents and relatives to talk anything about Sex (Yes, we did invent Kamasutra), his friends are very much open to talk about it. Since none of his friends had a proper education  Babu ends up learning all the wrong things from them. He gets more adventurous and visits a movie theater which is far away from the city and watches his first ‘xxx’ movie. Which obviously was censored and he feels cheated.

This is also the time when his parents visit him. They bring him food and money. His room-mates eat away all the food in first few days and Babu throws extravagant parties with his money.

Babu goes to Consulate

This would be his first visit to the American Consulate. After Babu finishes his studies. With all the knowledge he gained about the ‘Foreign land’ from his Bollywood movies watching he decides to go to US of A for his higher studies. This is the phase when the seeds of so called ‘American Dream’ TM are sprouting in Babu. He is scared to go to Consulate all by himself. But he does a good job of hiding it.

After spending 6 hours in line and then finally getting inside the consulate. Babu with all his nervousness and broken English fails to impress the guy at the counter. His application gets rejected.

Babu does Higher studies in India

After 5 hours of binge drinking with all the sadness of getting rejected for Education visa, Babu decides to pursue his higher education dream in India. He applies for a local University and gets in. The saga contiues. He stays in a similar room with 4 other guys. You would expect for him to do mature things. But nah, he is the same and the same patterns repeat themselves.

Babu gets a job as a Progammer

After looking for 3 months Babu gets a job as a Programmer in a local company. But there is a catch. He is an intern for 6 months and gets paid in pennies. Zilch. He accepts it as the competition is very high and also he needs the experience.

Babu meets software

All during his college/University Babu was very good at memorizing stuff and ogling it out when required in exams. But the reality is a bit harsh. Here he needs to write programs and come up with actual programs that work. His project manager is an ass and sloppy. Babu never learns anything about project management. He learns some bits and pieces of software technology. He does want to improve though and he makes up his mind to learn everything about real life software development

Babu goes to Consulate

But he gets constantly distracted by his colleagues who are no more interested in doing their job but to just use the company’s internet connection. He forgets about his learning and just gets content with quick fixes. Time goes on and 2 years later, his dormant ‘American Dream’ TM wakes up again. This time Babu goes to consulate with all the proper paper work, good enough english and a confident outlook for ‘H1B’ work visa.

He gets the visa!

Babu prepares for America

Babu refers to the excel sheet which gets passed onto all Indians travelling to America. It’s the mother of all lists. It has all the things that a american newbie needs to know. What to bring? Winter clothing? What to say to the cab driver? How much to tip? Where to find cheap cigarettes? How to avoid black people? etc

Like all Indians be buys – ‘checkered full sleeves shirts’, ‘Indian camel leather made jacket’, ‘Thermals’, ‘Nike Shoes’ (china made). He splurges on himself. His parents borrow more money for his tickets as they know that once Babu is in US he would be sending money back to pay off their debts. Babu is talk of his village. He is the first guy from that tiny village of 1000 people to make it to America!

Babu comes to Boston

Like any other consultant Babu is picked up by the Guy whose company sponsored Babu’s work visa. Let’s call him ‘Ram’. Ram is a typical India Consulting firm owner who sponsor Indian talent to US, makes money off of them and gets rich.

Ram takes Babu to his 4 bedroom house. Babu is excited as he is in US and he is going to live in a 4 bedroom house. On arrival he realizes that there are about 16 people in that 4 bedroom house and he is back to square 1. Sharing 1 room with 4 other people. First chink in his American Dream TM

He brushes it off and adapts to the environment. He makes friends with the guys. There are groups within 16 people. There is a South India group, North India Group, ‘Gujju gang’. They don’t mix up much. These groups cook separately, watch TV till late night, whistle while watching ‘Basic Instinct’ and are ready to give Babu with advice about America

Babu starts his American Education

Babu starts to learn quick. It’s November in Boston. Frigging cold. He realizes that the Camel leather is not gonna keep him warm. He dons his ‘Monkey Cap’ from India and walks around. He get’s his SSN, learns to drive, attends interviews for jobs.

He is introduced to Costco, Walmart, Sam’s club. All 16 people use 1 Costco card to share and shop. He is introduced to ‘Chalupa’ at Taco Bell, Big Mac at McDonalds. His weekends are filled with travelling to New Jersey to meet other Indian friends and eat some more Indian food and driving to Rhode Island to go visit a strip club.

Babu get’s a Job

Finally after 4 weeks he gets a job. But as usual this job is not in Boston. He has to move to another place. All by himself. The journey he made from his village to the city in India is repeated again. He moves to San Jose for his new job. He looks up sulekha.com and finds a place where he can live temporarily.

He moves into a 2 bedroom place which is shared by 4 people again. He is happy that atleast this time he has to share the room with 1 more guy. He gets a closet for himself for the first time. He buys about 50 hangers even though he doesn’t need them all. As usual this room has no furniture, no internet, no tv. He irons his shirt and pants for his first day at this job.

Babu’s first day at Work

He is nervous. He thinks everyone asks him how he is doing, but don’t really wait up to hear his answer. He can’t understand most of their American accent. He says “Yes” to everything they say to him and does his ‘Indian head nod’ a skill only Indians are expert at. Indian head nod is a circular bobbling of the head which could either mean ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ depending up on the person who is interpreting. For 400 years British were so cruel to us that I think we developed a special way of realying our angst and disagreement without being lashed. It’s an Indian thing. Check with you local Indian friend if you want to find out more.

Babu’s first year in America

His first year goes well. He moves out to 1 bedroom apartment with another colleague at his work place. He buys a used ‘Honda Accord’. He has been sending money every month diligently to India. He has learned to cope up with some more quick fixes at work. His hiring firm promised the client that Babu is an expert in all the relevant technologies. But it was a lie. Ram just wanted to make some money. Since Babu couldn’t say no to the job, he just acts that he is an expert and learns the new technology in 1 week. He knows that he is good at remembering stuff. It comes handy to show that he is indeed an expert. But that was interview. In his day to day job Babu is just putting off new fires and using Google to find out answers to his technical problems.

He has a TV, bought again from a Mexican guy on Criagslist. His furniture is all bought from Craigslist as well. He buys his clothes from Target and groceries from Costco which he shares it with his room mate.

Babu visits India

After 3 years of struggling in America Babu decides to go visit India. In the mean time he has changed about 5 jobs and in 5 different places. He has learned the art of Indian living in US. Saving money and living on very few dollars per month. Some times he is reminded of his grand dream but he no more believes in it.

He has planned to go visit India as his parents are bugging him to get married. They have already setup about 5 meetings with would be bride’s parents in the village. As he is the first guy in the village to make it to America – they can demand high amount of Dowry for him. Finally all the investment they made in him is paying off. This is the day they have been waiting for.

Babu arrives, visits all 5 possible bride’s places. Ok’s 3 girls and his parents pick the one who is paying the highest dowry among the 3. He get’s married and brings the mail order bride to the US of A. Before he left for India, Babu got his single friend to move out of the 1 bedroom apartment so that he can live with his new wife now. Let’s call his wife ‘Babi’ (You know I like short names!)

Babu’s Honeymoon

Babu doesn’t know anything about Babi. This is the time to know more about her. Babi is scared to be with a new person and also in a new place. They both go to Las Vegas for their Honeymoon. Babu gets to know more and more about Babi. He decides to fall in love with his wife. He figures – it’s going to be just like his job. Putting out more fires!

Babi’s American experience

Babu is the new teacher of Babi. She is dependent so she can’t work. She be-friends all the other Indian dependent mail order wives in the apartment complex. They have potlucks during weekends. Babi learns to operate Microwave, dish washer, dryer. Babu teaches Babi driving which takes about strenuous 5 months and few minor accidents. For the first time Babu let’s his car get scratches after he bought it. He discards it off as she bought a lot of Dowry to his parents. Babi gets more and more friends and learns to shop by herself. Yes, she uses the same Costco card.

Babu’s new baby

Babu doesn’t waste time. Why waste money buying condoms? Babi is pregnant and this is a good reason to get his parents visit him. He sponsors his parents to visit them for 6 months. He takes his parents to visit Disney land, Las Vegas, NY, Grand Canyon, Florida, San Diego. Babu has a baby boy.

Babu applies for Green Card

After talking to Ram and paying him money to sponsor his own green card (I told you Ram loves money), Babu gets his green card process started. By now he is settled and his job is going good. He has not yet learned the Software in real world and project management which he wanted to. But he is happy. He knows how to make this work. He works like a robot. Totally forgets his dream. Now and then wondering was it worht it? He is just another cog in the wheel. Another modern slave to the capitalistic market. He is just happy that he gets to eat Indian home made food and takes his kid to Indian cultural programs.

Babu’s Future

  • He has one more kid. It’s a girl this time
  • He grows a beard and gets over weight
  • His kids make fun of his English Accent
  • His kids call themselves – ABCD (American Born Confused Desi)
  • He has a receding hair line, eventually goes bald.
  • He still shops at Costco
  • He goes out to eat on weekends with kids (not at Mc Donalds)
  • His kids grow up.
  • He is worried about their education
  • He wants them to excel him and NOT have any false dreams
  • His son turns out Gay (not that there is anything wrong with that)
  • His daughter is dating a black guy
  • He is speechless and shocked.
  • A fitting finale of ‘Nightmare’ to his ‘American Dream’ TM

That’s all folks. Thanks to my many many friends who have gone through most of these experiences and all the acquaintances who shared their stories with me. I could go on and on but my fingers are aching like hell.

That’s the journey of a typical Indian consultant. Next time you see one – just check how he is doing. There is a lot more going on behind that ‘Indian head nod’!

Change in Perspective

I have been very very busy looking for a job from the moment I got back to US. Job search has kinda become my full time job now. Not that I have started to enjoy the process, but I do realize that it does saps out a lot of energy from me. Interviews are very tiring process. It’s not just he 1 hour that the interview happens but what happens before and after that. Before an interview, there is anxiety and stress of performing good. After the interview there is this usual stress of hearing back from them yada yada yada.

I have come to realize couple of things which I think have led to change my perspective on job search altogether.

  1. I am looking for a job after quitting my other job. Meaning I have all the time in this world to do interviews as well as fret about the outcome. Usually people interview or think of changing jobs while they are already on one job which means that they have already going on something while NOT interviewing.
  2. Most of the companies when they are trying to fill a position go theough a lot of candidates and take a minimum of 3-4 weeks before they give offers.

So this causes a deadly pattern in my daily life. I usually end up being very anxious and also stressful. Not only that, by just concentrating on this I have totally screwed up my daily schedule of journaling, meditating, blogging etc.

Last Saturday, I went out to a nearby Peet’s coffee and did some of my Ruby work. For 2 hours I was lost in my own world and it’s been such a long time I experienced that. I used to think that I derive joy out of learning. But I realized on that day that it’s not the learning, but the new thoughts, new ideas and new concept that learning brings into my life is what gives me joy. And after I started looking for a job, I basically stopped having new ideas, new thoughts and new concepts. I didn’t plan to be like that!

So, I have decided to get back with my schedule. This would include :

  1. Journaling
  2. Blogging
  3. Meditating
  4. Writing Ruby programs
  5. Getting back to my Algorithms book
  6. Picking up with my Erlang learning
  7. Picking up my Actionscript learning
  8. Thinking and blogging about scalability problems/ideas
  9. Listening to my music
  10. Learning everything about Salesforce platform and Apex code
  11. Not to get worried about my job search.

I have decided that my perfect job will come to me when the right time comes up. Till then, I am going to enjoy my life with all the things I want to do.

Why do I like to create Software?

I am looking for a job right now. I have had couple of discussions with some recruiters, companies in my first week here. A couple of people asked me a very interesting question – “Why do I like to create/write software?” or in other words, why do I like to do what I do? I knew the answer to the question to some extent, but I realized that I need to look deeper to get to more core reasons. So I did my bit – journaled, meditated etc and I think now I have good enough reasons to blog about it.

So, here we go – the list of reasons “Why do I like to create Software?“.

5. Creative Canvas: Like for a painter who plays within his canvas area, like for a sculptor who dabbles with his chisel and carve out the image from stone, Software environment gives me a creative play ground where I can test out my ideas. It’s the playground for my creative self to express itself. I write programs that crash and then I make them work and once they are working fine, I make them better. I talk to myself, I try to find inspiration, I read, I discuss, I think deep until I find a solution to my problem at hand within this area of canvas. It fulfills my creative needs and gives me a satisfaction of I created something new.

4. Problem Solving: Software is a very specific instance of problem solving. In this area I can apply my problem solving skills which are generic to the context of software. “Breaking it down”, “Problem re-statement”etc problem solving tools can equally be applied to Software and the outcome or result of those techniques is most of the time immediate. So, not only it’s sharpens my problem solving skills but it provides feedback and lets me improve my skills in that area.

3. Fun: Let’s me just admit, if it weren’t fun I would have never been in Software field at all. This process of taking up a problem or task, thinking about it, applying my creativity to it, trying out a solution, gathering feedback, re-trying the solution, learning, perfecting the solution – is an immensely gratifying as well as a fun filled process. I always imagine myself as a 5 year old kid with a paint brush, having fun with what I am doing. What I create may not solve world hunger, but it’s unique to me, it came from me, it’s an identity for me and it gives me a perspective of where I stand out in this world.

2. Interaction: It’s not any fun to write software inside an Igloo. It’s no fun to write software where I use the same solution again and again. Having other people who are also writing software around me and interacting with them makes it worthy. I realized (about myself) that my learning accelerates when I have a very quality technical interaction with other quality software people. Learning by reading, practicing comes next. Interacting, discussing, talking it loud about any software topic with others is such a creative process. It enhances my point of views and makes me a better software developer. I take back all those learning and try to adopt them in my daily programming.

1. Greater Good: This is a little tricky to explain. I would love to be a part of team which is solving world’s biggest problems – like poverty, global warming etc. But I also understand my position and purpose in life. So, I try to look at the work I do and think of what ‘need’, is my software fulfilling?. I am not big on bashing corporates for the sake of non-profits. It would be silly to do that. A lot of Open source zealots do like to bash anything Microsoft. I think it’s silly to do that too. When you look at the bigger picture, it’s the Ying and Yang.

I try to look at whether my software is meeting the required needs in the best possible way or not. That itself is inspiring to me. Yes, my software doesn’t help global leaders to take preventive actions on eradicating poverty (yet!), but I am happy that it solves a very tricky business process and make my client’s life as easy as clicking a button (so far!). I would love to solve big problems but I always try to see, irrespective of how big or small the issue at hand is, whether what I am doing is aligned to the needs of my client. That’s greater good for me.

As I was typing this, I got a great feeling of Deja Vu. I realized that almost all the above reasons I mentioned fall in the categories/bucket of what Maslow has proposed long time back. So, I checked Maslow’ hierarchy of needs and realized how most of the reasons why I create software fit into Maslow’ hierarchy beautifully.

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Top 5 things I will miss from India

I will be leaving for US in another 2 days. As I grapple with last minute things and battle the ebb of emotions within me, I realize that there are some things that I am going to miss. My stay in India was for almost 9 months and were filled with many memorable moments. As I look back, this stay here has caused some great changes within me which I welcome and adorn. So, here are my top 5 things that I am going to miss from India.

1. Family: I am going miss all the love, affection and care of my family. These 9 months passed away as a breeze only because I was loved so much here. My relatives love me, respect me and look up to me. It was exciting to be with them for a long stretch. One of the thing which was nice for me was – this time I didn’t get sucked up into any of the dramas. I am going to miss all the love, affection and care of my family.

2. Food: No where would I get food like I do at my home here. My mother is the best cook in the world. I love the food and my mom shows her love towards me through cooking amazing curries. It is also so easy to get some specialized food items outside easily and cheap in India. But I loved my home cooked food as it’s more healthier than outside and I would definitely miss the food.

3. Friends: I never thought I would put this under this list 3 months back. But now it’s a different scenario. I will miss the friends I made in the past 8 months. Some I kinda played mentor and I am looking forward to how their career unfolds. Some I had fun with, I am going to miss those Indian drink sessions. I am also going to miss some very quality tech discussions with Ratheesh. In the past few weeks, I realized that we both have some very close interests in some tech areas and I wish I came to know about this earlier. I am gonna miss having those tech conversations.

4. Color: It’s ironic that I am leaving a day after “Holi” (Festival of Colors). India is much more colorful than US. In US I find only shades of gray and the most stark color would be purple, that too if you live in Berkeley. Here color plays a major cultural role in people’s life. I am kinda used to see a lot of varied colors around me now. It’s going to take some time to get used to subtle and dull colors. I am going to miss the colors around me.

5 . Babies: Not mine! Even though I get so tired and sometimes very crazy tired by my nephews, but I loved spending time with them. Watching them learn to walk, watching them following me like little ducks, watching them learn to say words was an amazing experience. I realized that the first skill which babies learn is “On/Off”. It’s amazing to watch them grow and see how their minds develops. I had so much fun every day playing with them. I am going to miss them terribly.

Muslim Tomb & Hindu Priest

Last weekend we all went to my Grand parent’s place for 4 days. As a part of the ritual, I was supposed to don a hat of a barber (or hold a scissor) and cut my nephew’s hair for the first time. It’s a well known thing in India that a maternal uncle should cut his nephew’s/niece’s hair for the first time. Thank God it’s only one time! It is not as simple as it sounds. This act is usually associated with a holy place. Meaning someone in the family would make a deal with God(TM) that they will visit so and so holy place to offer the hair.

So, in this case it was my nephew’s Grand mother (father’s side) who cut the deal. It was in a “Darga” (Tomb of a holy person) in a very remote village called “Bodapadu”. Yes, we don’t have any qualms about visiting tombs and offering hairs – they could also be used incidentally for tourism purpose for ya all white people.

Anyhow, as we are Muslims – there is a strict code in Muslim law (I haven’t studied it but heard about this taboo a lot many times) that we are not supposed to visit any tombs as Islam is all against with Idolization of our pithy worldly objects. So, we broke that rule. But usually in India all these tombs (the holy ones of course) are all an offshoot of “Sufism” sect. They do belong to Islamic saints but come from a sect where it’s ok to have a tombs built and adorned for you. But a lot of Muslims don’t understand that. There is actually no reference made to Sufism, except that it’s just called plain old wrong. If you think we freak out with Tombs wait till we see the whirling dervishes!

So we broke the rule eh and we traveled to this remote place with hair full of nephews. What shocked me once I got there was – how this place is maintained. It’s all maintained by Hindus! Shocking. It’s gets more shocking – the priests’ of this tomb are actually women! Did you get jaw dropped yet? If not there is one more shocker – all those women are widowed. Oh my.

To put things in perspective for people who are not familiar with India. Here are the steps.

  1. Imagine you go to Vatican to see Pope
  2. You are one of those million people waiting to see ‘him’
  3. Now you are shocked because the pope is actually a woman
  4. As you try to wiggle out from your shock, you also realize that pope is actually a ‘African-American’ woman.
  5. Oooh you say, then you are told that she is actually Gay!

So what are you thinking now? I am sure you must be saying, someone wake me out of this dream. It was something similar to me when I saw a bunch of hindu, widowed, women are playing the act of priests for a Muslim holy saint. Now this is not so un-usual in India. Shirdi Sai Baba a holy saint from Shirdi is actually revered and prayed not only by Muslims, Hindus but also from various religion people.

I was quite amused by the surprise I got. I think Indians in general has some high tolerance capacity for other religions than theirs.

As to my nephew’s hair cut. It went great. His dad fed him chocolates and I cut his hair. So, here is the cutie:

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Here is me in action:

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And after 5 snickers, a lot of cajoling, a barber, a holy place, 15 relatives and some crying here is the outcome – 1 clean tonsured head with some Sandal wood paste on it. Priceless.

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The Lure of Low Hanging Fruit

I have been experimenting in the past couple of weeks and also have been observing my day to day activities both at work and home. I realized that in default mode of life, I am always going for “Low hanging fruit” of either work or other day to day activities. I usually end up making a list of things to do on any given day and then try to knock them off from my list. As day passes, I try to clean up as many as I can. But behind all this, there was more to it. I watched to my horror how I would nicely avoid the most difficult and tough activities and finish up the easy tasks. This has bought some quite new insights into my psyche.

I used to think that it’s ok to clear off the small things first. That it is ok to get the low hanging fruit first. I thought that this would build in me enough confidence as I would go on with my bigger tasks of the day. I was a big fan of “baby steps”. What the hell was I thinking? So, basically what happened over a period of time (I am sure this has happened over quite a number of years) is that I got addicted to the act of clearing the low hanging fruit a lot. I was lured into taking up the job of perennial fruit picker! To my astonishment this is such an automatic action for me, I never stopped to think about it.

Now once I realized this, I started to prioritize stuff. But my mind is such a slave of my senses that everything I come across looks high priority to me. I made a huge list of priorities. Then I decided that I would go and make categories out of it. I realized that those categories can also have context and devices attached to it. Oh my my. Did you see what I have started again? I have become the fruit picker again – only this time it’s all about bettering the priority system I was trying to create.

Then I took my clue bat and whacked myself. I realized that this has been solved long time back by a great logician called “Occam”. His principle which is very famously called “Occam’s Razor” states:

All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best – Occam’s Razor

So, now I sat down with my pen and paper, made a list of all the priority things I want to complete and cut it off after 3. Yes after 3. I made a promise to myself that if I can finish the top 3 priority things on my list then I am happy for the day. You won’t believe me that this did not go well me my old fruit picking self. After a lot of practice and self control I am working on only top 3 things at work and top 3 things at home. You would think that this has filled up my day with a lot of time. Wrong. I actually have a lot of difficulty in finishing all the top 3 important things in a day decently.

You see all these top 3 things have quite a high bar to cross. These are, sometimes, the toughest choices I have to make in a day or toughest meetings I have to do or mind wrenching work, inconvenient truths about me. I have come across couple of observations about these though.

  1. We are often encouraged in the name of “Efficiency” to adopt a life style of “fruit picker”. Followed over a period of time we turn into a professional low hanging fruit picker where we are continuously self gratifying by doing the things that matter a little to us. To over come this we have to look at “Effectiveness” instead of Efficiency. This focus would be very hard to do as it has become our habit to empathise with the mediocre me.
  2. The low hanging fruit habit develops because we lower our gratification level and there by also lower the achievement level. So, as we continue to do this, our view of ourselves and the world also goes down. We stop to have stellar thoughts. Creative ideas would be once a year thing.
  3. This creates the stupid competition of all the fruit pickers. There are a lot of low hanging fruit pickers around you. So what do you expect? There is a tremendous competition to get all the low valued tasks. And believe me that we usually get lost in this race and forget ourselves. That’s why the saying, “Theres’ always more room at the top“(sic) makes sense.
  4. This is employed very cleverly by modern technology. I have been working in Web technologies from past 9 years. Believe me when I say, we actually use the term “the customer is dumb, he doesn’t know anything” in our meetings and use it as a ruse to dumb down the application. We bring the bar so low that it’s easier for people to become addicted to low priority activities. Want proof?
    1. Facebook
    2. Twitter (this one actually has the fruit lying on the floor)
    3. Boo yah.
  5. I also believe that our thinking of prioritizing and then saving the important and hard items to the end comes from our thinking which is heavily influenced by Hollywood. We save the best for the end. We wait for the climax and the anti-climax. We coin terms like “good ending“, “Save the best for the last“. We have custom grown a whole culture based up on thinking where the best thing in the dinner is a dessert!
  6. We should also remember that we cannot apply this top 3 priority methodology to everything else we do. This works very well in a high performance work job. This would work well in a well organized event. This may not work very well in some very important things of your life. Try doing the top 3 things in the beginning next time you have sex.
  7. Now that I think of it, I am pretty sure that the Forbidden Fruit was a low hanging one. Adam started it all!

So, from what I learned in these past couple of weeks – all I could say is, if you are stuck with information overload and are confused about GTD, prioritizing and “remember the milk”. Just close your eyes, trust yourself more than anything or anyone else and then get the top 3 important things from your point of view done. See how by the end of day your courage level kicks up. You might actually start to enjoy it.

Power – less – ness

Today there was no power at home in the morning. As I went to work early to take care of lot of work which has piled up – I realized that there is no power there too. Because of some heavy rains there has been some major power cuts in lot of Hyderabad areas. This pretty much screwed up a lot of things for me as I was planning on to do a lot of things today. This brings out a important lesson which I keep forgetting:

“Always take risk into consideration when planning for project/work/day”